Deconstructing Intersectionality

The term Intersectionality refers to “intersecting forms of oppression” and emerged out of late 20th century feminist epistemology (theory of knowledge) in North America whereby it is was recognized that many women were oppressed as women also in their capacity as members of other structurally oppressed categories of persons and hence did academic feminists recognize that the epistemological position of an African-American lesbian woman in the United States was certainly not identical to that of a European-American heterocultural woman in the same country. This is literally how Intersectionality was born in the late 20th century North America. Of course was it at that point not recognized that women are a category of oppressors with girls formally legally disenfranchised as the structurally oppressed subordinated category of physionomistically designated sub-persons.

Since then has Intersectional feminism or Intersectionality for short developed into an intellectual mass movement both within and beyond academia and often in contemporary parlance known as “progressives” as feminism has thus expanded by integrating through Intersectionality into opposition to structural oppression generally and thus increasingly taking over the political left, which traditionally was primarily focused on class-based concerns of distribution of wealth by means of government taxation.

However as Intersectionality rapidly grew and both Intersectionality and Critical Theory in the widest sense of the term gained increasing mass appeal did the discursive exercise of power within the Intersectional community gain increasingly totalitarian traits as believing Communists joined the movement and the originally Saudi-based Islamist Muslim Brotherhood international intelligence agency focused heavily on coercive intelligence recruitment of vocal members of the Intersectionality global discursive community.

Totalitarians did increasingly endeavor to take over a movement endeavoring to oppose as well as end virtually every form of structural oppression and totalitarians thus endeavored to turn Intersectionality into a tool for restricting public debate and curtail open society by imposing totalitarian speech codes and shaming opponents into silence and submission by smearing individual opponents with epithets that surely rather ought be used in a responsible sense.

Intersectionality in evolving into becoming the mainstream needs however not limit itself to the political left but needs rather to diplomatically engage the entire pro-democratic political spectrum and not limit itself to the left side of the pro-democratic political spectrum. This means that it is rather the totalitarians whether acting as Crypto-Communists, Crypto-Islamists or coercively recruited collaborators with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood international intelligence agency who need to be expunged from the global Intersectionality discursive community.

Holding prejudice is part of the human condition and to pretend that the reactionary dichotomy between political left and political right is that of opponents of physionomism (anti-body ideologies) and DOLP (discrimination, oppression, lies and prejudice) on the meat-eating left against advocates of physionomism and DOLP on the right is at best a demagogic charicature. In fact, totalitarian parts of the left have increasingly engaged in propagating epistemological inter-human racism and epistemological physionomism generally. The problem with the left is thus not its embrace of Intersectionality but rather that it has failed to distance itself from totalitarians and their collaborators as seeking to take over the democratic left.

In opposing epistemological physionomism ought we therefore as participants in Intersectionality certainly not give rise to yet further forms of epistemological physionomism. As language is the purveyor of discourse need we open public debate about intersectional etiquette rather than foreclose it. For example how should we deal with grammatical gender as being part and parcel of gender oppression? How should we ethico-politically develop language use so that we open public discussion instead of shutting it down? Rather than imposing new oppressive norms should the entire pro-democratic political spectrum participate in open and respectful discussion as to how we can strengthen open society by leaving aggressive masculinist speech codes in favor of feminist intersectional dialogue throughout the pro-democracy political spectrum. We ought not replace old oppressive speech codes with new oppressive speech codes but we need rather open up language for innovation and creative language use in Intersectional diversity.

Yes grammatical gender is a scourge, but in order to end it ought we not delete the essential grammatical distinction between singular and plural in supplanting he/she with “they” and his/her with “their”. Rather ought we in English use a new gender neutral pronoun as the one that has increasingly become introduced in Swedish by using a Finnish pronoun whereby “han” (he) and “hon” (she) has increasingly been supplanted by Swedish journalists by the gender neutral “hen” as derived from the gender neutral Finnish pronoun “hän”. The attempts in the United States to impose they/their as gender neutral pronouns and thus needlessly eliminate the singular/plural distinction as well has been unsuccessful precisely because this effort was not preceded by open public debate and thus did not produce a reasonable and working proposal.

Rather would it be useful to coin a new gender neutral pronoun in English in thus on the Swedish model increasingly supplanting he/she with phi. Additional innovative pronouns could be gradually introduced (ti, ki, pi, di, li, ri, ji etc.) to express additional distinctions in pronouns in ways as not reproducing structural oppression and physionomistic categories. What distinctions should these additional pronouns express? Well, that is certainly a question for public discussion in which all parts of the pro-democracy political spectrum ought participate and certainly without expressing physionomism or engaging in exercise of DOLP.

What if we were to simply drop the mythologically laded antiquated 19th century European notion of “heterosexuals” and simply refer to those who who irrespective of their own gender are primarily attracted to females as lesbians as well as referring to those who irrespective of their own gender are primarily attracted to males as gays? At the same time should we recognize that we are all more or less panamorous (“pansexual”) although to highly varying degrees and that our respective desires are clearly polyamorous indeed since we simply do not control whom we emotionally desire and irrespectively so of marital vows. This would simply drop an entirely redundant distinction of gender, after all if you tend to be attracted towards a certain type of gendered persons, then why need you also as matter of linguistic exhibitionism simultaneously indicate your own entirely unrelated ideologically assigned anatomy?

Language is able to express very complex systems of distinction and may be used for ethico-political purposes rather than reproducing physionomism and DOLP. Reinventing language use is a very important issue indeed as the ethico-political reinvention of vocabulary and syntax alike ought be introduced by means of open society and certainly not imposed on open society without public discussion and as indeed open to the entire pro-democracy spectrum of political expression. Furthermore, the question of the future of the English language is certainly not limited to the United States and so this ought not be limited to domestic debate.

Intersectionality needs thus not limit itself to the reactionary economic “leftrightist” dichotomy where traditionally opposition to social oppression was generally oppressively subordinated to the question of whether economic oppression or statist oppression were preferable to one another. Intersectionality certainly ought not limit itself to point out the ills of social structural oppression but needs to engage in large-scale, diverse social innovation in devising tremendous diversity of ethico-politically better options so as to supplant statist structural oppression and economic structural oppression as well.

Social innovation and public discussion thus needs take center stage in Intersectionality. We must no more primarily limit ourselves to discuss what is wrong (physionomism & DOLP) and need importantly devise and discuss ethico-politically better options for the future which importantly need to be functional and therefore practical indeed. Supplanting he/she with they was impractical and therefore did not succeed as the elimination of grammatical gender needs be practical and functional indeed. The same is true with respect to other forms of ethico-political social innovation as endeavoring to end structural oppression whether economic, social or statist. It has to work in reality and win public approval, that is the nature of democracy. That is not only how democracy is but importantly how it should remain.

The main criticism of the political right towards the political left is that its proposal are unpractical and therefore harmful. By deconstructing and ending the “leftrightist” reactionary dichotomy and thus open the entire political spectrum to social innovation and discussion thereof can we thus individually politicize every little detail of individual conduct; how we speak, how we eat, how we buy, how we act, how we treat others whether human animals or non-human persons, how we treat the living environment and how our individual choices cause impact. This ought not be limited to questions of predetermined “whether” but importantly serve to open public discussion as to how we ought conduct ourselves in varying respects on the basis of conceptual innovation, social innovation and technological innovation indeed.

CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) managers have thus become increasingly influential in bringing what are effectively intersectional perspectives to the private sector on the understanding that striving for optimally ethical conduct (i.e. the best choice principle) is essential for corporate branding and hence so as to protect, enhance and grow goodwill assets and thus ultimately future profitability. CSR is thus an example of Intersectionality becoming active in a sector as so far discursively dominated by adherents of the political right.

Intersectionality thus needs not only distance itself from totalitarians (whether Communists or Islamists) and their often involuntary collaborators but importantly engage in mainstreaming of Intersectionality so as to thus become friendly towards and inclusive of the entire democratic spectrum in preferring dialogue to stigmatization. Not only needs Intersectionality implement itself throughout the pro-democracy political spectrum of public expression, but its internal debates need become mainstreamed to open society at large, meaning that we ought not only argue against structural oppression (whether economic, social or statist) but furthermore offer practical, functioning, innovative ethico-political options in its stead and importantly extensively and throughout open society comparatively discuss those very diverse future options indeed.